First Grade News!
September 19, 2025
Welcome Back to School!
Greetings Families!
I am excited to share our third newsletter of the year! This bi-weekly publication will be a key resource for staying connected and informed about our classroom. Parent-Teacher Conferences are coming up soon. Please be on the lookout for a Sign Up Genius that will be shared via email from the main office. Progress Reports and your child's iReady reading and math diagnostic reports were in this week's Thursday Folder. If you have any questions please don't hesitate to reach out. They ran their little hearts out today and they are exhausted. I am so proud of them!
Grading Scale
- + = Meets
- ✔️ = Making Progress
- ➖ = Not Making Adequate Progress
Phonics
We have spent the last week focusing on the FLSZ (floss rule). Examples of these types of words are: pass, fill, buzz, and cliff. The floss rule is only used after a short vowel sound.Current heart words are: the, said, of, see, to, he, be, me, from, was, what, have, you, want and what. These are words that students should be able to read and spell quickly. Next week we are focusing on one syllable words with -all, -ull, and -oll.
Math Topic 1 Understanding Addition and Subtraction
We are currently working our way through Topic 1.
Take From (Subtraction): For example, "You had 7 cookies and ate some, now you have 4. How many did you eat?"
Comparing Situations: Understanding which quantities are more or less.
Change Unknown: For example, "You had some pencils, gave away 3, and now have 5. How many did you start with?"
Comparing Situations Using More or Less: For Example: Ben had 6 blue hats and 3 red hats. How many more blue hats does Ben have?
Writer's Workshop
POWER up our writing!
We're starting an exciting new writing program called SRSD. The first step we take when "powering up our writing" is to learn how to find the gist of a story or topic. The gist is simply the big idea. For example, if you read a story about a dog who gets lost and finds his way home, the gist is "a dog gets lost and finds his way home." We'll be using this "big idea" to practice writing topic sentences.
You can help at home by asking your child after you read a book together, "What was the gist of that story?"
Reader's Workshop/Science
We have started Unit 2 during Reader's Workshop! Please see the attached home-connect for further information. They students are having so much fun getting to know all the new characters that they have met so far!